2025-04-16 Zuckerberg v. Zuckerberg: Will the Real Facebook Founder Please Stand Up?

2025-04-16 Zuckerberg v. Zuckerberg: Will the Real Facebook Founder Please Stand Up?


The Justice Department’s 1998 antitrust trial against Microsoft got airtime in yesterday’s opening statements in FTC v. Meta. And Microsoft was on my mind again during the second day of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony. His lawyerly parsing of his own emails bordered on the infamous equivocation from Bill Gates in his deposition in the Microsoft case, played to great effect in the government’s opening statement in that trial:
美国司法部 1998 年针对 Microsoft 的反垄断审判，在昨天 FTC v. Meta 案的开庭陈述中被提及。而在 Facebook 创始人 Mark Zuckerberg 作证的第二天，Microsoft 又再次浮现在我的脑海中。他像律师一样逐字拆解自己邮件的做法，几乎接近 Bill Gates 在 Microsoft 案证词中那种臭名昭著的含糊其辞；当年政府方在那场审判的开庭陈述中播放这段证词，取得了很强的效果：

The FTC picked up where we left off yesterday, digging into Facebook’s justifications for buying Instagram in 2012. It saved the best Zuckerberg exhibits for last. We’ve seen pieces of these documents cited in the summary judgment papers and in the FTC’s opening statement, but on Day 2 we got to see more documents and more of the documents. Because Zuckerberg writes so clearly, these chats and emails mark an early high point of the FTC’s case—proving up that Facebook’s intent was to stop Instagram from scaling as a rival social network. (And we’ll be covering how much intent evidence matters here later.)
FTC 接着昨天的内容继续推进，深入追问 Facebook 2012 年收购 Instagram 的理由。它把最有力的 Zuckerberg 证据留到了最后。我们此前已经在简易判决文件和 FTC 的开庭陈述中见过这些文件的部分引用，但在第二天，我们看到了更多文件，也看到了这些文件中更完整的内容。因为 Zuckerberg 写得非常清楚，这些聊天记录和邮件成为 FTC 案件早期的一个高潮——证明 Facebook 的意图是阻止 Instagram 扩张成为一个竞争性社交网络。（至于意图证据在这里到底有多重要，我们后面还会讨论。）

Like yesterday, the FTC’s lead lawyer, Daniel Matheson, wanted to nail down that the juiciest parts of these emails were in fact referring to Instagram. Because the FTC doesn’t seem to have clear control (admissions from the deposition that they can use to “impeach” Mark Zuckerberg by showing he contradicted himself under oath), Matheson seemed like he had to “do it live” by asking Zuckerberg some questions for the first time.
和昨天一样，FTC 的首席律师 Daniel Matheson 想要确认这些邮件中最有杀伤力的部分确实是在指 Instagram。由于 FTC 似乎没有掌握明确的控制性材料（即可以用来“弹劾” Mark Zuckerberg、证明他在宣誓作证时自相矛盾的庭外证词承认），Matheson 看起来不得不“现场操作”，第一次向 Zuckerberg 提出一些问题。

The result? Frequent invitations by Zuckerberg to offer unasked-for context and answers bordering on the absurd.
结果如何？Zuckerberg 频繁趁机提供别人并未要求的背景说明，并给出近乎荒谬的回答。

Instagram Objective: “Neutralize A Potential Competitor”

Instagram 的目标：“消除一个潜在竞争者”

The first email chain we saw this morning was between Zuckerberg and former Facebook CFO David Ebersman in early 2012. Zuckerberg used economic language to opine:
今天上午我们看到的第一组邮件链，是 2012 年初 Zuckerberg 与 Facebook 前首席财务官 David Ebersman 之间的通信。Zuckerberg 用经济学语言表达了自己的看法：

"One business question[] I’ve been thinking about recently is how much we should be willing to pay to acquire mobile app companies like Instagram and Path that are building networks that are competitive with our own . . . . The businesses are nascent but the networks are established, the brands are already meaningful and if they grow to a large scale they could be very disruptive to us. . . . Given that we think our own valuation is fairly aggressive right now and that we’re vulnerable in mobile, I’m curious if we should consider going after one or two of them. What do you think about this?"
“我最近一直在思考的一个商业问题是，我们应该愿意支付多少钱来收购 Instagram 和 Path 这类移动应用公司，它们正在建立与我们自己的网络相竞争的网络……这些业务还处在早期阶段，但网络已经建立起来，品牌已经有意义，如果它们成长到很大规模，可能会对我们造成很大破坏……鉴于我们认为自己目前的估值相当激进，而且我们在移动端比较脆弱，我想知道我们是否应该考虑收购其中一两家公司。你怎么看？”

In reply, Ebersman asked what Zuckerberg’s goals were in a potential Instagram acquisition—numbering a few, starting with “(1) neutralize a potential competitor”. Zuckerberg agreed:
Ebersman 在回复中询问 Zuckerberg，潜在收购 Instagram 的目标是什么——他列出了几个目标，第一个就是“（1）消除一个潜在竞争者”。
Quote
From: David Ebersman

To: Mark Zuckerberg

Tuesday, 28th Feb 2012 09:27

I tend to have a high bar for M&A considerations. All the research I have seen is that most deals fail to create the value expected by the acquirer. My instinct is that many deals are done because the CEO is frustrated that the business is not where they want it to be. they would rather do something than nothing, and M&A seems like the biggest lever they have. This is a had reason to do a deal. So for these two ideas specifically. I would ask you to find a compelling elucidation of what you are trying to accomplish. 1) neutralize a potential competitor? Bad reason in my book since someone else will spring up immediately in their place. There will always be consumers who are instinctively negative about the industry leaders and want to work with the upstarts. We will always have upstarts nipping at ow heels. We have to win against competitors by having better products. 2) acquire talent? Seems expensive for this. 3) integrate their products with ours in order to improve our service? This can be a very compelling reason, if you have a clear vision for how the implementation would be great for users and that we cannot do the product improvements ourselves in a reasonable timeframe. 4) other? Happy to discuss further. 
我对并购考量通常有很高的门槛。我看到的所有研究都表明，大多数交易未能创造收购方预期的价值。我的直觉是，很多交易之所以发生，是因为首席执行官对业务没有达到他们希望的位置感到沮丧。他们宁愿做点什么，也不愿什么都不做，而并购似乎是他们手中最大的杠杆。这是一个糟糕的交易理由。所以具体到这两个想法，我会要求你清楚而有说服力地说明你到底想实现什么。1）消除一个潜在竞争者？在我看来，这是一个糟糕的理由，因为马上会有其他人取而代之。总会有一些消费者本能地反感行业领导者，想要和新兴公司站在一起。我们身后总会有新兴公司紧追不舍。我们必须通过拥有更好的产品来赢过竞争者。2）收购人才？为此付出的代价似乎太高。3）把它们的产品与我们的产品整合起来，从而改善我们的服务？如果你对如何实施有清晰愿景，并且这种实施会极大有利于用户，同时我们无法在合理时间内自己完成这些产品改进，那么这可以是一个非常有说服力的理由。4）其他？很乐意进一步讨论。
Zuckerberg 表示同意：

"It's a combination of (1) and (3) . . . . The basic plan would be to buy these companies and leave their products running while over time incorporating the social dynamics they’ve invented into our core products. One thing that may make (1) more reasonable here is that there are network effects around social products and a finite number of different social mechanics to invent. Once someone wins at a specific mechanic, it’s difficult for others to supplant them without doing something different. It's possible someone beats Instagram by building something that is better to the point that they get network migration but this is harder as long as Instagram keeps running as a product. . . . By a combination of (1) and (3), one way of looking at this is that what we're really buying is time. Even if some new competitor[] springs up, buying Instagram, Path, Foursquare, etc now will give us a year or more to integrate their dynamics before anyone can get close to their scale again. Within that time, if we incorporate the social mechanics they were using, those new products won’t get much traction since we’ll already have their mechanics deployed at scale.”
“这是（1）和（3）的组合……基本计划是买下这些公司，让它们的产品继续运行，同时随着时间推移，把它们发明的社交动态机制整合进我们的核心产品。这里可能让（1）更合理的一点是，社交产品存在网络效应，而可以发明的不同社交机制数量是有限的。一旦有人在某一种具体机制上胜出，其他人如果不做出不同的东西，就很难取代它。有人可能通过打造一个好到足以促成网络迁移的产品来击败 Instagram，但只要 Instagram 继续作为一个产品运行，这件事就会更难……把（1）和（3）结合起来看，一种理解方式是，我们真正买下的是时间。即使有新的竞争者冒出来，现在买下 Instagram、Path、Foursquare 等，也会给我们一年或更长时间来整合它们的动态机制，在此之前，任何人都很难再次接近它们的规模。在这段时间里，如果我们把它们正在使用的社交机制整合进来，那些新产品就很难获得太多牵引力，因为我们已经把它们的机制以规模化方式部署出去了。”
Idea
很多文章都因为这一点在吹嘘Zuckerberg的聪明，或者战略的眼光，我自己感觉中间的逻辑是模糊不清的。
1、能不能顺利整合是未知的，比如，跟Facebook是不是兼容？就像巴菲特说的，原来是个中餐馆，Instagram如果是法餐，能不能整在一起？
2、如果基因不一样，硬整有可能两败俱伤，Facebook没有弄好，Instagram也没有弄好，即使买进来了独立发展，Facebook能不能容忍Instagram做大做强？比如，腾讯微信和QQ，Zuckerberg在这里所体现的聪明劲有一点，如果Instagram是微信，这种方式可以先把位置抢下来，但真正的考验是放弃QQ，这在Zuckerberg的身上没有看到，过度思考的证据多于突出重点、放弃QQ的证据。
Asked about the email, Zuckerberg parried, testifying first that he was looking at integrating key features from these apps. He explained the “scale” point as the “difference between having a feature in beta mode and having it rolled out widely.”
被问及这封邮件时，Zuckerberg 进行了闪避，先是作证称，他当时是在考虑整合这些应用的关键功能。他把“规模”这一点解释为“一个功能处于测试模式，和这个功能被广泛推出之间的区别”。

As Matheson tried to get him to say he agreed with Ebersman’s #1—neutralizing a competitor—Zuckerberg said that this email was simply “mapping my reasoning onto him”. (And later, we expect to see a subsequent email where Zuckerberg walks the “neutralize” language back.) Matheson asked what a “reasonable person” would think the emails meant, and Zuckerberg answered, “I’m not sure what a reasonable person would conclude.” Fair enough: the question called for speculation into the minds of others. And yet Zuckerberg’s answer made it sound like he is an unreasonable person. He won a “gotcha” moment but came across like a lizard from outer space. A couple of reporters in the press room were shaking their heads or laughing at this exchange.
当 Matheson 试图让他说出自己同意 Ebersman 的第一点——消除一个竞争者——时，Zuckerberg 说，这封邮件只是在“把我的推理映射到他那里”。（而且之后我们预计会看到一封后续邮件，Zuckerberg 在其中收回“消除”这个说法。）Matheson 问，一个“理性人”会认为这些邮件是什么意思，Zuckerberg 回答：“我不确定一个理性人会得出什么结论。”这倒也说得过去：这个问题要求他揣测他人的想法。然而 Zuckerberg 的回答听起来却像是在说他自己不是一个理性人。他赢得了一个“抓住你了”的瞬间，但给人的印象却像是一只来自外太空的蜥蜴。新闻室里有几名记者在这段交锋中摇头或发笑。

Next, the FTC wanted Zuckerberg to say that he shut down development of Facebook Camera after agreeing to acquire Instagram, which would help prove the two were potential competitors. Matheson asked the simple question of whether Facebook, in fact, stopped developing Camera after announcing the deal. Said Zuckerberg: “I’m not aware of the chronology of that” but agreed Facebook stopped developing Camera.
接下来，FTC 想让 Zuckerberg 承认，在同意收购 Instagram 后，他关闭了 Facebook Camera 的开发，这将有助于证明两者是潜在竞争者。Matheson 问了一个简单问题：Facebook 是否确实在宣布交易后停止开发 Camera。Zuckerberg 说：“我不了解其中的时间顺序”，但承认 Facebook 停止了 Camera 的开发。

He’d repeat the “I’m not aware of the chronology” line throughout the day in the style of Marco Rubio-bot, forcing the FTC to waste time by refreshing his recollection of dates by showing him more documents.
他当天会不断重复“我不了解其中的时间顺序”这句话，风格像一个 Marco Rubio 机器人，迫使 FTC 通过向他展示更多文件来帮助他恢复对日期的记忆，从而浪费时间。

Out came an exchange with former COO Sheryl Sandberg, where Zuckerberg gave some “[e]xamples of things we could scale back on or cancel,” such as the “[m]obile photo app (since we’re acquiring Instagram)”. Discussing feedback for a third executive, Zuckerberg continued, writing that "Messenger isn't beating WhatsApp, Instagram was growing so much faster than us that we had to buy them for $1 billion. . . . That's not exactly killing it."
随后出现了一段与前首席运营官 Sheryl Sandberg 的交流，其中 Zuckerberg 举了一些“我们可以缩减或取消的事项例子”，例如“移动照片应用（因为我们正在收购 Instagram）”。在讨论给第三位高管的反馈时，Zuckerberg 继续写道：“Messenger 并没有击败 WhatsApp，Instagram 增长得比我们快太多，以至于我们不得不花 10 亿美元买下它们……这可不算表现出色。”

WhatsApp Objective: “The Biggest Competitive Vector For Us”

WhatsApp 的目标：“我们最大的竞争方向”

Then the FTC moved the questioning onto WhatsApp, starting with a January 2013 Zuckerberg email where he wrote, “I think we should block WeChat, Kakao, and Line ads” on Facebook—referring to messaging apps used mostly outside the United States. He explained that they were “trying to build social networks and replace us” and that the “revenue is immaterial to us compared to any risk.”
随后 FTC 将问题转向 WhatsApp，首先引用的是 Zuckerberg 在 2013 年 1 月的一封邮件，他在邮件中写道：“我认为我们应该在 Facebook 上屏蔽 WeChat、Kakao 和 Line 的广告”——这些是主要在美国以外使用的通讯应用。他解释说，它们“正试图建立社交网络并取代我们”，而且“与任何风险相比，这些收入对我们来说都无关紧要”。

The next month, Zuckerberg sent an update email to Facebook’s board of directors, framed around a question from then-director Erskine Bowles about what Facebook’s “biggest risks are.” Here’s what Zuckerberg answered:
次月，Zuckerberg 向 Facebook 董事会发送了一封更新邮件，围绕当时董事 Erskine Bowles 提出的一个问题展开，即 Facebook “最大的风险是什么”。Zuckerberg 是这样回答的：

"The biggest competitive vector for us is for some company to build out a messaging app for communicating with small groups of people, and then transforming that into a broader social network. Companies like Line and Kakao in Korea and Tencent in China are running this exact strategy, and it's working reasonably well. They haven't expanded outside of Asia yet, but this is a big risk for us."
“对我们来说，最大的竞争方向是某家公司打造一个用于小群体沟通的通讯应用，然后把它转化为一个更广泛的社交网络。韩国的 Line 和 Kakao，以及中国的 Tencent 这样的公司，正在执行这一完全相同的战略，而且效果相当不错。它们还没有扩张到亚洲以外，但这对我们是一个很大的风险。”

So Zuckerberg saw WeChat, Kakao, and Line as threats because they were developing broader social networking platforms from messaging apps. But what about WhatsApp? The FTC tied it together by playing this clip of Zuckerberg on CNN Money where he compares WhatsApp to WeChat, Kakao, and Line (starting at 1:33):
所以，Zuckerberg 把 WeChat、Kakao 和 Line 视为威胁，是因为它们正在从通讯应用发展出更广泛的社交网络平台。那么 WhatsApp 呢？FTC 通过播放 Zuckerberg 在 CNN Money 上的一段视频把这一点串联起来，在视频中，他将 WhatsApp 与 WeChat、Kakao 和 Line 进行了比较（从 1 分 33 秒开始）：

But here again, the man on the witness stand took the Bill Gates approach, testifying that “it’s possible I compared [WhatsApp] to those specific services” after the clip already played. The 20+ reporters in the media room started laughing. It was hard to believe he would try to quibble about something everyone just saw and heard. Matheson ran the clip a second time.
但在这里，证人席上的这个人又一次采取了 Bill Gates 式的做法：在视频已经播放之后，他作证说，“我有可能把 [WhatsApp] 和那些具体服务进行过比较”。媒体室里 20 多名记者开始发笑。很难相信他会试图对所有人刚刚亲眼看到、亲耳听到的东西进行狡辩。Matheson 又播放了一遍这段视频。

You might be wondering why these little things matter so much and how they help the FTC meet its burden of proof. They don’t directly. But they do go to credibility. And whether Meta’s claimed procompetitive justifications for acquiring WhatsApp and Instagram are pretextual is at issue; if the FTC shows the deals were anticompetitive, but Meta cannot offer a non-pretextual procompetitive benefit from them, then Meta will lose this case. And if the star defense witness can’t be trusted to give a straight answer on what he saw himself say 30 seconds ago, why should anyone credit his testimony about what he was thinking 12 years ago?
你可能会疑惑，为什么这些小事如此重要，它们又如何帮助 FTC 满足举证责任。它们并不直接做到这一点。但它们关系到可信度。而 Meta 所声称的收购 WhatsApp 和 Instagram 的促进竞争理由是否只是借口，正是本案争议所在；如果 FTC 证明这些交易具有反竞争性质，而 Meta 又无法提出并非借口的促进竞争利益，那么 Meta 就会输掉本案。并且，如果辩方的明星证人连 30 秒前大家看到他自己说过什么都不能可信地给出直接回答，为什么还有人应该相信他关于 12 年前自己在想什么的证词？
Idea
看上去没什么问题，比如，Zuckerberg说“我不确定一个理性人会得出什么结论。”这一句话非常真实，有几个真正理性的人？那些听到后发笑的100%不是。
1、Zuckerberg买下WhatsApp 和 Instagram，可能不是理性的行为，为什么必须是？企业家很多关键动作本来就是恐惧的结果，David Ebersman的回复就非常真实。
Quote
我的直觉是，很多交易之所以发生，是因为首席执行官对业务没有达到他们希望的位置感到沮丧。他们宁愿做点什么，也不愿什么都不做，而并购似乎是他们手中最大的杠杆。这是一个糟糕的交易理由。
2、Zuckerberg买下WhatsApp 和 Instagram促进了和Facebook的竞争，比如，加大投入以后，规模变的更大，相互之间形成了更强的竞争，为什么不是？腾讯的微信和QQ，QQ被弱化才是更真实的垄断，如果持续加大QQ的投入，QQ肯定会跟微信形成比目前更强的竞争。

Zuckerberg不分重点的买了一堆，结果是加剧了内部竞争，损害了Meta的整体利益，跟腾讯放在一起做个比较就能看出来。每一个都重要，每一个都不能放弃，每一个又都可能伤害另一个。Instagram 抢 Facebook 的注意力；Reels 抢 Feed 的注意力；WhatsApp 有通讯网络但商业化谨慎；Messenger 和 WhatsApp 功能重叠；Threads 又像对 Twitter/X 的防御性反应。结果是，Meta 拥有很多资产，但需要不断协调这些资产之间的边界。

Zuckerberg很好的解释了他自己不够聪明，做不到腾讯那样，傻子，往自己身上捅刀子的人构不成垄断的风险，或者弱化了可能性，换句话说，FTC应该把Zuckerberg保护起来，如果让腾讯或者字节占据Meta现在的位置，那就麻烦了，那是更真实的垄断的风险。
After lunch, Matheson returned to Instagram with a 2018 email from Zuckerberg to Adam Mosseri, the Head of Instagram who we saw at the tech tutorial. “I agree with you that Instagram will always need to focus on friends and can never exclusively be for public figures or will cease to be a social product,” Zuckerberg wrote. A good line for the FTC’s proposed “personal social networking services” (“PSN”) market and its focus on friends and family sharing.
午餐后，Matheson 又回到 Instagram，拿出 Zuckerberg 2018 年发给 Adam Mosseri 的一封邮件。Adam Mosseri 是 Instagram 负责人，我们在技术说明环节见过他。Zuckerberg 写道：“我同意你的看法，Instagram 将始终需要关注朋友关系，绝不能只服务于公众人物，否则它就会不再是一个社交产品。”这句话对 FTC 所主张的“个人社交网络服务”（“PSN”）市场，以及其对朋友和家人分享的关注来说，是一句有利表述。

Offering to Buy Snapchat

提出收购 Snapchat

The FTC’s next module covered Facebook’s efforts to buy Snapchat. This part matters because we heard from Meta’s opening statement that Snapchat is a more distant competitor than TikTok, which the FTC says shouldn’t be in the market. And it bolsters the idea that WhatsApp could have evolved into a broader social networking service in a similar way. We see an email that Zuckerberg “delivered the offer to Evan”—referring to Evan Spiegel, Snapchat’s founder—and “he seemed to take it well.” Zuckerberg warned that “we should probably prepare for it to leak that we offered $6b for them and all the negative that will come from that." In another email, he laid out the competitive rationale for the offer:
FTC 的下一个模块涉及 Facebook 试图收购 Snapchat 的努力。这一部分很重要，因为我们在 Meta 的开庭陈述中听到，Snapchat 是一个比 TikTok 更疏远的竞争者，而 FTC 认为 TikTok 不应被纳入相关市场。这也强化了一个观点：WhatsApp 本来也可能以类似方式演变成更广泛的社交网络服务。我们看到一封邮件，其中 Zuckerberg “把报价交给了 Evan”——指的是 Snapchat 创始人 Evan Spiegel——而且“他似乎接受得还不错”。Zuckerberg 警告说，“我们可能应该准备好消息泄露出去，即我们出价 60 亿美元收购它们，以及由此带来的一切负面影响。”在另一封邮件中，他阐述了这项报价背后的竞争理由：

"The growth of Snapchat Stories means that Snapchat is now more of a competitor for Instagram and News Feed than it ever was for messaging . . . . Snap Stories serves the exact same use case of sharing and consuming feeds of content that News Feed and Instagram deliver. We need to take this new dynamic seriously—both as a competitive risk and as a product opportunity to add functionality that many people clearly love and want to use daily."
“Snapchat Stories 的增长意味着，Snapchat 现在与 Instagram 和 News Feed 的竞争关系，已经超过了它曾经在通讯领域的竞争关系……Snap Stories 服务的是与 News Feed 和 Instagram 完全相同的使用场景，即分享和消费内容流。我们需要认真对待这种新的动态——既要把它视为竞争风险，也要把它视为一个产品机会，去增加许多人显然喜欢并希望每天使用的功能。”

In the end, we know that Facebook took the latter course, introducing its Stories feature as a copycat. Zuckerberg admitted that Snapchat connected friends (part of the FTC’s market definition) and, after lunch, agreed that "Snapchat was and is a competitor." So much for Hansen’s argument that Snap is too distant a rival for the PSN market to make sense.
最后我们知道，Facebook 采取了后一条路线，推出了模仿性的 Stories 功能。Zuckerberg 承认 Snapchat 连接朋友关系（这是 FTC 市场定义的一部分），并在午餐后同意“Snapchat 曾经是、现在也是一个竞争者”。这样一来，Hansen 关于 Snap 对个人社交网络服务市场而言是过于疏远的竞争对手、因而该市场定义不成立的论点，就站不住脚了。

The “Ad Load Tax”

“广告负载税”

With the acquisitions covered, the FTC moved on to showing how Facebook and Instagram continued to compete for users’ time and attention post-closing—helping show that Instagram was a nascent or actual competitor, part of what Chief Judge Boasberg said they would need to prove in his summary judgment opinion. In one Zuckerberg email, he said Facebook’s “best estimates are that had Instagram remained independent, it would likely be around the size of Twitter or Snapchat with 300-400 million MAP today, rather than closer to 1 billion.” While Meta’s scale might have helped Instagram grow, that makes them seem like they would have been a viable independent competitor.
在收购问题讲完之后，FTC 转向展示交易完成后 Facebook 和 Instagram 如何继续争夺用户的时间和注意力——这有助于证明 Instagram 曾是一个新兴竞争者或实际竞争者，而这正是首席法官 Boasberg 在其简易判决意见中所说 FTC 需要证明的一部分内容。在 Zuckerberg 的一封邮件中，他说，Facebook 的“最佳估计是，如果 Instagram 保持独立，今天它很可能会达到 Twitter 或 Snapchat 的规模，即 3 亿到 4 亿月活跃用户，而不是接近 10 亿。”虽然 Meta 的规模可能帮助 Instagram 实现了增长，但这也让 Instagram 看起来本来会成为一个可行的独立竞争者。

In one 2018 email, Zuckerberg wrote:
在 2018 年的一封邮件中，Zuckerberg 写道：

“I think we’re badly mismanaging this right now. There’s absolutely no reason why IG ad load should be lower than FB at a time when . . . we’re having engagement issues in FB. If we were managing our company correctly, then at a minimum we’d immediately balance IG and FB ad load . . . But it’s possible we should even have a higher ad load on IG while we have this challenge so we can replace some ads with [People You May Know] on FB to turn around the issues we’re seeing.”
“我认为我们现在对此管理得非常糟糕。在……我们正面临 Facebook 互动问题的时候，IG 的广告负载完全没有理由低于 Facebook。如果我们正确管理公司，那么至少我们会立刻平衡 IG 和 Facebook 的广告负载……但也有可能，在我们面临这一挑战期间，我们甚至应该让 IG 承担更高的广告负载，这样我们就可以在 Facebook 上用[你可能认识的人]替换掉一些广告，以扭转我们正在看到的问题。”

Then, another 2018 email, this time from Zuckerberg to the Board of Directors:
然后是另一封 2018 年的邮件，这次是 Zuckerberg 发给董事会的：

"The relative weakness of the Facebook app requires us to rebalance how our apps support each other. The Facebook app has historically driven most of Instagram's growth through bookmarks and other links, and has born[e] a higher ad load tax."
“Facebook 应用的相对疲弱，要求我们重新平衡各个应用彼此支持的方式。Facebook 应用历来通过书签和其他链接推动了 Instagram 的大部分增长，并且承担了更高的广告负载税。”

Matheson zeroed in on the “ad load tax” language, as putting these emails back to back suggested that users felt that more ads were a bad thing, but that cutting down ads would help boost engagement on Facebook. Zuckerberg testified instead that “over time, the quality of the ads as people report them to us has approached the quality of the organic content.” Of course, the emails suggest the opposite and support the FTC’s “ad load” theory that ads are a tax or price, not something equivalent to content from family and friends. That helps the FTC show a “price” increase or quality decrease in the form of more ads, an anticompetitive effect from these mergers. And it helps them define their PSN market.
Matheson 集中追问“广告负载税”这个说法，因为把这些邮件前后放在一起看，暗示用户认为更多广告是一件坏事，而减少广告将有助于提升 Facebook 的互动。Zuckerberg 作证时却说，“随着时间推移，按照用户向我们反馈的情况，广告质量已经接近自然内容的质量。”当然，这些邮件暗示的是相反情况，并支持 FTC 的“广告负载”理论：广告是一种税或价格，而不是等同于家人和朋友内容的东西。这有助于 FTC 证明，更多广告以“价格”上升或质量下降的形式体现了这些并购带来的反竞争效果。它也有助于 FTC 界定其个人社交网络服务市场。

“People don’t come to Facebook or Instagram for the ads,” Matheson asked. Zuckerberg would only agree that that was “generally right.”
“人们来到 Facebook 或 Instagram 并不是为了看广告，”Matheson 问道。Zuckerberg 只愿意承认这“总体上是对的”。
Idea
跟Bill Gates非常像，喜欢过度思考的典型，注意力放在“广告负载”这种细节上，没有能力看到更重要的、结构化的东西。

Zuckerberg Considered Spinning Off Instagram

Zuckerberg 曾考虑剥离 Instagram

A high point of the FTC’s examination of Zuckerberg came in the form of a stunning 2018 email—notated “Confidential - do *not* share beyond this group”—from Zuckerberg to COO Sheryl Sandberg, Chris Cox, and other senior Facebook executives. In it, he contemplates spinning out Instagram, noting that antitrust regulators may force the company to do so anyway and that companies often do better broken up:
FTC 询问 Zuckerberg 的一个高潮，来自一封令人震惊的 2018 年邮件——邮件上标注着“机密——请*不要*在本群组之外分享”——由 Zuckerberg 发给首席运营官 Sheryl Sandberg、Chris Cox 以及其他 Facebook 高级管理人员。在邮件中，他考虑剥离 Instagram，并指出反垄断监管机构无论如何都可能迫使公司这样做，而且公司在拆分后往往表现更好：

“I am growing more convinced that we are approaching the family strategy incorrectly—especially around Instagram. While we believe our current trajectory will yield strong business growth over the next 5 years, I worry it will also undermine our global network effect, erode our corporate brand, impose an increasingly large strategy tax on all our work, and then over time we may face antitrust regulation requiring us to spin out our other apps anyway. . . .
“我越来越确信，我们正在以错误的方式处理应用家族战略——尤其是在 Instagram 方面。虽然我们相信当前轨迹会在未来 5 年带来强劲的业务增长，但我担心它也会削弱我们的全球网络效应，侵蚀我们的企业品牌，给我们所有工作施加越来越大的战略税，而且随着时间推移，我们无论如何都可能面临反垄断监管，要求我们剥离其他应用……

As calls to break up the big tech companies grow, there is a non-trivial chance that we will be forced to spin out Instagram [and WhatsApp]. . . . On the flip side, while most companies resist break ups, the corporate history is that most companies actually perform better after they've been split up. The synergies are usually less than people think and the strategy tax is usually greater than people think. . . . [W]e may later regret not course correcting sooner in a way that may remain masked if the family of apps stays together."
随着拆分大型科技公司的呼声越来越高，我们被迫剥离 Instagram [和 WhatsApp] 的可能性并非微不足道……另一方面，虽然大多数公司抗拒拆分，但企业史表明，大多数公司在被拆分后实际表现更好。协同效应通常低于人们的想象，而战略税通常高于人们的想象……如果应用家族继续留在一起，这一点可能会被掩盖，而我们以后可能会后悔没有更早纠正方向。”

You rarely see emails from senior corporate executives—let alone the CEO—openly wondering whether they are violating the antitrust laws, let alone that they may be broken up. Typically, these conversations might seek legal advice and be privileged from discovery. But it didn’t seem like Zuckerberg was seeking any legal advice; he was just letting it rip in clear and conspicuous language, as in his other emails. This email might have more utility in helping the Court decide an appropriate remedy, rather than establish liability, but it was a dramatic moment in the morality play of trial that made Zuckerberg look like he knew that holding onto Instagram was wrong. And not only that it was wrong, but that it might not be a good business decision regardless to hold onto it.
你很少会看到公司高级管理人员——更不用说首席执行官——在邮件中公开思考自己是否违反了反垄断法，更不用说公开思考公司是否可能被拆分。通常，这类对话可能会寻求法律意见，并因此受到证据开示特权保护。但 Zuckerberg 看起来并不是在寻求任何法律意见；他只是像在其他邮件中一样，用清楚而醒目的语言把想法直接说了出来。这封邮件在帮助法院决定适当救济措施方面，可能比在确立责任方面更有用，但在审判这出道德剧中，这是一个戏剧性时刻，让 Zuckerberg 看起来像是知道继续持有 Instagram 是错误的。不仅是错误，而且无论如何，继续持有它可能也不是一个好的商业决策。
Idea
承认自己的脑子存在问题，用“战略税”代替了“愚蠢税”，但已经好过很多人，模模糊糊看到一些事实，但就像巴菲特在股东信里说的“当别人都在睡觉时，你半醒着并不能充分保护自己”。
Finally, the FTC put up a few more exhibits to support its PSN market. One was an internal Facebook report again using the language of economics to distinguish social networking apps from other apps:
最后，FTC 又展示了几份证据，以支持其个人社交网络服务市场的定义。其中一份是 Facebook 内部报告，再次使用经济学语言区分社交网络应用和其他应用：

“The most important concern should be network effects . . . . when you use an app less, that makes it less appealing to other people, and at certain times and places those effects could be very large . . . . We should expect tipping points in social apps. As an extreme simplification, social networks have two stable equilibria: either everyone uses them, or no-one uses them. In contrast, nonsocial apps (e.g. weather apps, exercise apps) can exist [somewhere] along a continuum of adoption. The binary nature of social networks implies that there should exist a tipping point, ie some critical mass of adoption, above which a network will organically grow, and below which it will shrink.”
“最重要的关注点应该是网络效应……当你减少使用一个应用时，这会让它对其他人的吸引力下降，而在某些时间和地点，这些影响可能非常大……我们应该预期社交应用中存在临界点。做一个极端简化，社交网络有两个稳定均衡：要么所有人都使用它们，要么没有人使用它们。相比之下，非社交应用（例如天气应用、运动应用）可以存在于采用率连续谱上的某个位置。社交网络的二元性质意味着，应该存在一个临界点，也就是某种采用的临界规模，高于这个点，网络会自然增长；低于这个点，网络就会萎缩。”

And we saw a document previewed from the FTC’s opening statement yesterday, plus an earnings call transcript, undercutting Meta’s theme that it competes with LinkedIn, Nextdoor, Pinterest, and Twitter based on their design features:
我们还看到了一份昨天 FTC 开庭陈述中预先展示过的文件，以及一份业绩电话会文字记录，它们削弱了 Meta 的一个主题论点，即 Meta 基于这些产品的设计功能与 LinkedIn、Nextdoor、Pinterest 和 Twitter 竞争：



Meta’s Turn with Mark
轮到 Meta 询问 Mark

There wasn’t much time left in the day for Meta’s examination of Zuckerberg, but it scored a few quick points. Zuckerberg testified that most time spent on Facebook today is watching video, which helps Meta argue that it competes with YouTube and TikTok. Zuckerberg said he had never heard of the “personal social networking services” term before this case, nor had he ever heard of the app MeWe, which is in the FTC’s PSN market. He rattled off virtually every company listed as a competitor in Meta’s opening, but focused on the three biggest ones—TikTok, YouTube, and iMessage (also named were Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Nextdoor, Snapchat, Signal, and Telegram). And he mentioned how users switch between apps when some go offline.
当天留给 Meta 询问 Zuckerberg 的时间已经不多，但它迅速拿下了几个要点。Zuckerberg 作证称，如今用户在 Facebook 上花费的大部分时间都用于观看视频，这有助于 Meta 主张自己与 YouTube 和 TikTok 竞争。Zuckerberg 说，在本案之前，他从未听说过“个人社交网络服务”这个术语，也从未听说过 FTC 个人社交网络服务市场中的 MeWe 应用。他几乎一口气列出了 Meta 开庭陈述中提到的所有竞争者，但重点放在三个最大的竞争者上——TikTok、YouTube 和 iMessage（同时被提到的还有 Twitter/X、LinkedIn、Nextdoor、Snapchat、Signal 和 Telegram）。他还提到，当某些应用宕机时，用户会如何在不同应用之间切换。

Zuckerberg’s testimony should conclude tomorrow. Up next are former COO Sheryl Sandberg and some pre-recorded video depositions.
Zuckerberg 的证词应会在明天结束。接下来出庭的是前首席运营官 Sheryl Sandberg，以及一些预先录制的视频证词。

Potpourri
杂项

Sheryl Sandberg wanted to lean in on board games, writing Zuckerberg in the “not exactly killing it” email that “I want to learn settlers of catan too so we can play.” Mark replied, “I can definitely teach you Settlers of Catan. It's very easy to learn.” Time magazine reported in March 2013 that Zuckerberg had recently taught Sheryl Sandberg’s family how to play the Klaus Teuber-designed tabletop game after all. Meta whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams claimed that employees lost to Zuckerberg at Settlers on purpose; he denied the allegations.
Sheryl Sandberg 还想在桌游上更投入一些，她在那封“可不算表现出色”的邮件中写给 Zuckerberg：“我也想学会《卡坦岛》，这样我们就可以一起玩。”Mark 回复说：“我当然可以教你《卡坦岛》。它很容易学。”《时代》杂志在 2013 年 3 月报道称，Zuckerberg 后来确实刚刚教会了 Sheryl Sandberg 的家人如何玩这款由 Klaus Teuber 设计的桌面游戏。Meta 举报人 Sarah Wynn-Williams 声称，员工在玩《卡坦岛》时会故意输给 Zuckerberg；他否认了这些指控。

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